Without question there are more theories of how dinosaurs became
extinct than for any other creatures that have inhabited this planet. In
the late 1980s Alan Charig, curator emeritus of the British Museum of
Natural History, informed me that he had tallied over eighty theories
of how dinosaurs had met their demise. As I will argue in the closing
chapter, it was probably not a single cause that brought the dinosaur
extinction, but eighty causes surely is overkill!

I will not dwell on those theories for which physical or biological
evidence is lacking, but will go directly to the three that have been
most recently tested and debated. These are the impact theory, the volcanism theory, and the marine regression theory. I regard all of
these as ultimate, not proximate. By this I mean that none of these
events would have directly caused the extinctions. Rather each would
have precipitated ancillary or corollary consequences that then did the
deed.

This distinction is important. Moreover, it may be time for the
debaters to join forces. Although doubters as to an impact, or volcanism, or marine regression near or at the K/T boundary remain in force,
evidence is becoming overwhelming that all three occurred. In chapters 7 and 8 I will spend some time discussing these three events, especially magnitude and timing, but I accept them all as having been adequately demonstrated. What most requires testing, in my view, is

Notes for this page

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.comPublication information:
Book title: Dinosaur Extinction and the End of an Era:What the Fossils Say.
Contributors: J. David Archibald - Author.
Publisher: Columbia University Press.
Place of publication: New York.
Publication year: 1996.
Page number: 116.

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